Haven't posted here in a long while. I don't own a K-car, never have, but like hearing about any other poor contrarians who are trying to save orphan cars that the rest of the motoring world has long forgotten and couldn't care less about. My own instrument of personal torture is an '87 Dodge Colt Vista 4wd micro-wagon by Mitsubishi. Guy Coulombe visited our site, www.coltvista.com, last winter when its creator, Alan Moore, brought it into being. Guy's encouragement was much appreciated, so we immediately came here to repay the favor. One result is that I developed a personal awareness of K-cars (spotted an absolutely gorgeous deep-maroon convertable last month).

Guy tells me that this site has been about as disappointingly slow-moving as ours has. I'm concluding that any site specializing in cars as widely un-cared-about as ours will probably exist only as an internet resource for the few remaining owners to go to for help, and will never have active social gatherings. Maybe that's not so bad; we all have a lot to do, and have enough other places to socialize. It is a bit hurtful to the feelings of the originators and early enthusiasts of our sites when our pride of authorship is met mostly by silence. But things could be worse . . . we could be among the millions of car guys with Camaros and 'Stangs. Instead we have peeled off from the common herd . . . reward enough!

Thankyou Seattle Smithy for those kind words. Yes, it does hurt our feelings, especially when we work hard to put on events and people we have known for years just leave or stop showing up. No phone call, no email, no common courtesies that were expected of folks 40 years ago. I have come to adopt the maxim that even if just a few people show, even for dinner, is better than nothing at all. I wish you could have seen our miracle record of 24K-Cars in one place in Los Angeles in April. Have an exciting K-car roadtrip coming up on the 25th where I think I will be able to drag 10-12 owners into attendance. Its also a pure numbers game. We are lucky that appx. 30,000-40,000 K-cars still exist, and the convertibles are being saved cause they are "cool", even though I am sort of biased against the fact and upset people junked all the 82-85 LeBaron 4drs. Even get razzed by my own members when I call a car rare, which they are. People don't realize what they have lost until they have lost it, and some will seriously miss the Vista I assure you. I also invite anyone to events and if you had a Vista chapter nearby, they'd be welcome to ride with us. Unfortunately, Seattle Smithy, I believe that if you and I just quit, which I have been close to doing on several occasions, the clubs would just die cause no one wants to assist or be a leader, but I remain hopeful to find a few good men, such as yourself, to help us soldier on and pass the torch. I really would like to find a successor as passionate as me to keep this thing going.

Are you English or Aussie or some-such? It is SMITTY, S-M-I-T-T-Y, not "Smithy".

Anyway, yeah, I think the numbers of enthusiasts for our two marques will never come near anything like critical mass, and that if guys like you and Alan give up on it and go on to other things, the gatherings will end. The Vista is going to disappear for sure. People profess to remember them fondly and say they would like another one, but these are folks with no mechanical skills. The gear-heads couldn't care less about it. Maybe half a dozen guys building maximized Vistas.

Ten months later, dropping by again. Our coltvista.com site has been getting a small but satisfactory volume of forum talk, and a new member joins every couple of weeks. A couple of these guys have real nice cars and have posted photos.

Of course, there are also the guys who ask for tech help but can't spell or type, and will not go back and edit their work so we can hardly figure out what they want. These guys are to be found on every site. If you are one, come on, nobody expects you to be an English major with perfect grammer, but please be considerate enough (especially when asking for help) to look over and fix your posts. Expecting others to interpret garbled posts is disrespectful. (End rant. Now I have to make sure I'm not guilty here!! ).